IPTV is an emerging system where digital television and multimedia services are delivered to set top boxes present in a home environment using IP over a network infrastructure. Today, IPTV is most often associated with Video on Demand (VoD) and live TV services. However, IPTV can also provide Internet services, such as web access and Voice over IP (VoIP). Another feature of IPTV is the opportunity for integration and convergence with other multimedia services. This opportunity is affected mainly by the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), providing an architectural framework for delivering IP multimedia serves in the IPTV environment. Such IMS-based services that can be used with the set top boxes include chats and different messaging services allowing IPTV users to communicate with each other.
Today, set top boxes are generally pre-equipped with IPTV-related applications that are to be invoked during IPTV sessions and include, for instance, audio players, video players, chat applications, etc. The set top boxes can further be enhanced by downloading such applications after installation at the set top boxes in the IPTV home network. In either case, the set top boxes are therefore mainly configured to effectively handle such locally installed applications, denoted embedded or native applications within the technical field. There is, though, a general need for handling other types of applications besides traditional embedded applications in the set top boxes. The set top boxes of today are, however, not configured to be able to handle such other types of applications in an efficient manner.